The LiquidPlanner Blog

How to Tell LiquidPlanner That You’re Going on Holiday

Ah, holiday. Vacation. Time spent not working. No matter how you say it, the concept of getting away from your project management duties and instead, taking tightrope walking classes in Paris, for example, is incredibly exciting. Or maybe your idea of a perfect vacation is to spend 48 hours straight in your living room catching up on Downton Abbey. There’s no judgment here.

However, before you pack up and head off for distant, unknown lands, there’s one thing you need to remember to do: tell LiquidPlanner about your upcoming absence. Why? LiquidPlanner is constantly trying to predict and build the most accurate schedule it can for you and your team.

So if you’re not available to work at some point, LiquidPlanner needs to know so that it doesn’t schedule you for work during those dates. You wouldn’t want LiquidPlanner to think you’re working on those website specs when you’re actually perfecting cannonballs while cliff diving in Fiji, right? To tell LiquidPlanner about your holiday, you’ll need to create an event. Many teams like to do this by creating a package called “Events,” and then having each team member put their own personal events in that same package. Here’s how to get started:

Go to the Add button at the top of your Projects page. Click “Package.”

An edit pane will pop up. Call the package “Events.”

After it’s added to your project plan, the Events package may drop to the bottom of your page. For ease of reference, drag and drop that package to the top.

Now on to adding the event itself. You say you’re climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in June? Sounds a little insane, but good for you! To add this event or so called “vacation” (did I mention I think you’re nuts?) to your new Events package:

Go back to the Add button and select “Add an Event.”

The edit pane will pop up. Rename the event something like “Mt. Kilimanjaro” or “Someone Please Talk Me Out of This.”

Double-check that the event is assigned to you.

Enter the calendar dates in which you’ll be gone. This is one of the only times that LiquidPlanner will ask you for hard dates.

Hit save.

LiquidPlanner will automatically recalculate your project plan, flowing work around your holiday. You’ll know instantly if your little jaunt will cause any project deadlines to become at risk, and you can go put out those fires before the big day comes.